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Americans kinda don't like pickpocketing rule
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this post was submitted on 07 Jul 2025
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I’d say it’s more about retribution. There’s a craving for punishment against perceived wrongs.
I don't disagree. Basically what we're told justice is.
There's nothing perceived about someone snatching my wallet. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
I get it, but it has to be obvious how quickly this logic can spiral, though.
If I come around a corner and find you putting the boots to someone begging you to stop, you're getting smoked by the biggest thing I can find. I don't know the context. Violence to stop violence is measured.
Being wronged isn't a carte blanche. As soon as you introduce violence, suddenly violence actually becomes the measured response against YOU.
am i supposed to ask the robber nicely to give me my stuff back?
I mean, it's a reasonable place to start at the very least?
We're talking about pickpockets, right?
Someone tried to pickpocket me in Europe on the train. I blocked the door and, despite having no common language, I left them know I was aware they had taken my stuff. I'm pretty sure they understood it was my intention to get it back and that was going to be a hassle for everyone.
They just handed it back and left.
Should I have just started swinging?
you've just gotten lucky, most of the times they play dumb and act as if they did nothing, and even public shaming won't do anything
Live by the sword, die by the sword, somehow still relevant.
So committing a crime yourself, assault (and/or assault with a deadly weapon), in response to the first crime, pickpocketing, is suddenly totes okay then? I don't get it. Seems like retributive extrajudicial punishment to me. Just because it's a real thing that happened and not just perceived doesn't suddenly absolve you of committing violent crime in return. If you hospitalize the pickpocket and give them a lifelong limp, you've given them far more severe and retributive punishment than just taking their wallet in return.
I mean, who knew, maybe this is why we have laws and shit.
It's not a crime. You can use force to reclaim stolen property. Legally, it gets 'interesting' when you involve a weapon in your use of force, because some areas allow the threat of deadly force far before it can actually be used and you're probably going to expose yourself to legal avenues if the police don't like you when they show up. But simply kicking someone's ass after they stole from you? Perfectly permissible.
If you want to talk about the morality of it, that's a different conversation.
Yes it is totes ok. Encouraged even. Fuck a thief.
If I beat the shit out of a pickpocket and give them a lifelong limp too bad so sad, they have a permanent reminder of the principle of fuck around find out or FAFO. I was minding my own business right until they decided to make themselves my business.
Legality is stupid and does factor into 99% of my actions so I will disregard it as a decision making factor.
Poetry
Lmao you're unhinged dude. Get a grip and maybe realize the shit in your wallet isn't more valuable than a human life.
Especially considering its probably all credit and debit cards that you can cancel almost immediately and get any money spent by a thief returned to your accounts. But yeah, someone deserves a lifelong limp because they inconvenienced you. Get the fuck outta here lmao.
You might not support someone like Trump politically but you're no better than those who voted for him. These attitudes are 100% why US society is deeply fucked, the politics are just a symptom of this violent brainrot.
But is more valuable to me, I barely give an iota of a fuck for my own existence why would I give a damn about some shit heel who introduced themselves to me by trying to take my shit. Much like my height life is short and cheap.
Also I could keep only peanut butter in my wallet, doesn't mean a pick pocket wouldn't deserve at minimum a swift kick to the gut for trying to take it. Minding ones business takes literally no energy, making sure others mind theirs takes a bit more, going out of your way to get in other folks business takes a shit tonne more.
And finally the various cultures and nations within the US are broadly based on the principles of minding ones own business. How far that extends varies but it makes sense given how many folks left Europe because other people couldn't mind their own business. Trump and his supporters are all some type of supremacists be them financial, religious, or racial which is what makes them dangerous not the broad violent tendencies that is present across the US. I can assure you if I murdered a handful of their leaders say every NIFB cocksucker society would greatly improve, for context the NIFB or New Independent Fundementalist Baptists are a bunch christonazis.
Violent. Brainrot.
Says the person who comes across as a moral absolutist. Do you want a cookie profligate?
Lmao, sure I love cookies.
They're filled with forever chemicals and asbestos. Unironically how a small but old treat company near me got shut down, good riddance tasted like plaster the one time I had one of their so called treats.
Lmao, what are you even trying to say here, dude? Get a grip. Calm down. So fuckin angry at the idea that someone questions your violent tendencies. Gee, I wonder if that anger is proof in itself of your violent tendencies.
Dude I have autism and PTSD, I am nothing but rage. But it's not necessarily a matter of getting angry at you questioning it per se but more so what I perceive as moral absolutism against violence. I generally take the position against pacifism on an individual level, mostly because 9/10 Americans are all bark no bite which is rather bad with the whole rise of fascism thing. The most expedited method to stopping fascists is to start the killing of them as soon as possible which was about 50 years ago with the foundation of the "moral majority".
This erroneously assumes new fascists aren't being born every day. It also erroneously assumes that the threat of retribution deters things like fascism, or crime in general. It's a weird sort of eugenics where "if we just kill all the fascists there won't be anymore ever."
The point isn't to kill them all it's to kill their leaders and make examples of them. Do you really think many folks would've wanted to cheerfully read off aids death lists back in the 80s if Rush Limbaugh had been vaporized by a car bomb?
Fascists are inherently cowards who back down when an example is made of their louder fellows, there's a reason they mostly do actions in groups and it's because they know they'll get their shit kicked in otherwise. The problem is that this shit kicking is not extended to the leaders, for the sake of so called civility.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/evidence-does-not-support-the-use-of-the-death-penalty/
I dunno man plenty of science shows that being put to death does basically fuck-all to prevent other people from committing the same kind of crimes. You can hide behind the hope that they're cowards all you want, but that's still leaning on assumptions.
So worse case scenario is that fascists keep getting killed via vigilante means. I fail to see the downside.
why are we defending thieves?
You realise beating up a pickpocket is itself a stupid game that will get you in jail, right?
If the idea is that I can't defend my own property then I understand why pickpocketing is so rampant elsewhere.
I don't want to kill anybody, but I'm not gonna just hand it over with a smile on my face.
Yeah I feel like I am in crazy town. If you don’t want your ass kicked keep your hands out of my pocket. There will be consequences and they will be lopsided.
I think it's hilarious that Americans think they will always win every fight. Everyone the hero of their own stupid Judge Dredd story right up until they get stabbed and left to die in an alley by the thief.
And I wonder how many of the people promoting this kind of thought say they're against people like Trump, yet this kind of thinking exactly like that of Trump and his ilk.
Grow the fuck up, dude. You can still join the civilized world anytime you want because they believe people can grow and change and should have the opportunity to do so instead of being crippled by some fuckwit who is angry about their wallet.
Yes punching someone a few times and holding them down until the police come is totally what judge dredd is about.
You're still living in a fantasy land where you're able to successfully pull that off every time this happens and not get your own shit rocked. You're also living in a fantasy land where punching someone a few times while they're down on the pavement and cracking their skull into the concrete won't completely alter their lives, far more than you losing your wallet would alter yours.
Get a grip on reality, dude.
I feel like I have a better grip than you honestly. You probably let people walk all over you. They chose to alter their own lives. I’m not filled with empathy especially for thieves.
For credit cards and debit cards I can instantly cancel, get replaced, and have any money spent returned to my accounts? Yeah, I definitely let someone walk all over me by having 20 minutes of inconvenience instead of violently trying to ruin that persons life over 20 minutes of inconvenience. Lmao, violent brainrot.
Cool story chief. That’ll teach em. Sorry it’s a hard lesson. Don’t touch my shit.
So proud of the violent brainrot, too.
Call it whatever the fuck you want. Yep.
You don't have to want to kill anybody, but it's still a crime to violently assault someone. Further, you can still kill someone without trying, say you punch him once and he goes lights out and his head hits the concrete so hard it kills him. Doesn't matter that you didn't want to, you just killed someone.
Now if you used something defensive like pepper spray so you can escape with your wallet? That's a different story. There's a wide gap between protecting your property and assaulting someone.
I didn't say I want to assault anybody. But if someone tries to take my wallet, would I push them off and move away swiftly? Yes absolutely.
I guess to me, that seems rather defensive. I don't want to engage any more than I have to to extricate myself from the situation
Spraying someone with pepper spray is a violent assault. It's banned in a number of counties due to the possibility of permanent injury or even death, and the risk to bystanders.